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HEAVEN AND EARTH
A monologue from the play by Lord Byron
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Lord Byron: Six Plays. Lord Byron. Los Angeles: Black Box Press, 2007. |
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- RAPHAEL: I came to call ye back to your fit sphere,
- In the great name and at the word of God.
- Dear, dearest in themselves, and scarce less dear
- That which I came to do: till now we trod
- Together the eternal space; together
- Let us still walk the stars. True, earth must die!
- Her race, return'd into her womb, must wither,
- And much which she inherits: but oh! why
- Cannot this earth be made, or be destroy'd,
- Without involving ever some vast void
- In the immortal ranks? immortal still
- In their immeasurable forfeiture.
- Our brother Satan fell; his burning will
- Rather than longer worship dared endure!
- But ye who still are pure!
- Seraphs! less mighty than that mightiest one,
- Think how he was undone!
- And think if tempting man can compensate
- For heaven desired too late?
- Long have I warr'd,
- Long must I war
- With him who deem'd it hard
- To be created, and to acknowledge him
- Who midst the cherubim
- Made him as suns to a dependent star,
- Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim.
- I loved him—beautiful he was: oh, heaven!
- Save his who made, what beauty and what power
- Was ever like to Satan's! Would the hour
- In which he fell could ever be forgiven!
- The wish is impious: but, oh ye!
- Yet undestroy'd, be warn'd! Eternity
- With him, or with his God, is in your choice:
- He hath not tempted you; he cannot tempt
- The angels, from his further snares exempt:
- But man hath listen'd to his voice,
- And ye to woman's—beautiful she is,
- The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss.
- The snake but vanquish'd dust; but she will draw
- A second host from heaven, to break heaven's law.
- Yet, yet, oh fly!
- Ye cannot die;
- But they
- Shall pass away,
- While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky
- For perishable clay,
- Whose memory in your immortality
- Shall long outlast the sun which gave them day.
- Think how your essence differeth from theirs
- In all but suffering! why partake
- The agony to which they must be heirs—
- Born to be plough'd with years, and sown with cares,
- And reap'd by Death, lord of the human soil?
- Even had their days been left to toil their path
- Through time to dust, unshorten'd by God's wrath,
- Still they are Evil's prey, and Sorrow's spoil.
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